Some cigarette brands are likely to be far more addictive than others, new research warns.

For the first time, scientists have measured the amount of super-addictive "freebase" nicotine different cigarettes deliver to the smoker. Like crack cocaine, freebase nicotine vaporises and passes rapidly through the lungs into the bloodstream.

Because it reaches the brain so quickly it is thought to be more addictive than normal nicotine, which stays in the form of sooty smoke particles. Until now it has not been known how much freebase nicotine various types of cigarette contain.

The new research, from a team at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, US, could lead to ways of rating the addictiveness of different brands.

Scientists compared 11 brands of cigarette available in the US.

They found that some brands contained 10 to 20 times higher percentages of freebase nicotine than experts had previously been led to believe. Brands were compared with a laboratory "reference" cigarette containing one per cent freebase nicotine.

They varied greatly, ranging from one per cent or two per cent to 36 per cent for a speciality US brand called American Spirit.

The popular Marlboro brand contained up to 9.6 per cent freebase nicotine. Other well known brands included Camel (2.7 per cent), Winston (five per cent - 6.2 per cent) and Gauloises Blondes (5.7 per cent - 7.5 per cent).

In many cases, the freebase content was higher in the first puffs. Marlboro, for instances, had a freebase nicotine level of 9.6 per cent in the first three puffs and 2.7 per cent in later puffs.

Professor James Pankow, who led the study reported in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, said: "We found big differences in the percentages of freebase nicotine among 11 commercial cigarette brands.

"During smoking, only the freebase form can volatise from a particle into the air in the respiratory tract. Gaseous nicotine is known to deposit super-quickly in the lungs. From there, it's transported rapidly to the brain.

"Since scientists have shown that a drug becomes more addictive when it is delivered to the brain more rapidly, freebase nicotine levels in cigarette smoke thus are at the heart of the controversy regarding the tobacco industry's use of additives like ammonia and urea, as well as blending choices in cigarette design."

The tests were carried out using a laboratory smoking device and a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer which analyses chemical composition. Separate measurements were made of the first three puffs and about eight subsequent puffs.

They varied greatly, ranging from one per cent or two per cent to 36 per cent for a speciality US brand called American Spirit.

That is interesting. For the last ten years (3rd decade of smoking) I have rolled my own from American Spirit. It is all additive free. 100% tobacco. I smoke less than when I smoked Marlboro (1st ten years) and Camel Filters (2nd ten years).

When I switched to rolling my own I used Velvet, not AS. I had a couple of packs of Camel Filters left at the time. For the first week or so I found myself smoking cigarette after cigarette of Velvet until I was nearly green from nicotine poisoning and still not feeling "satisified". I would then light up a Camel Filter and get "satisfaction" with the first puff. I had to wean myself off of the chemo-smokes.

6
posted on 07/27/2003 12:31:52 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(Joe McCarthy was right ... so was PT Barnum!)

My personal experience has always caused me to believe Marlboro was the most addictive cigarette on the market.

Me too. I switched brands when I found out about all the additives they were putting in there (saltpeter?!?!?!). I switched to Winston because of their 100% tobacco,"No Bull" marketing thing. From the artcle, I see that they are fairly high on the freebase factor! Maybe I need to go to camels.

I smoke lights and ultra-lights, with a mind to get the chemical addiction as low as possible before I drop 'em again. Last time, "anger management" was a big problem.

Not inhaling the first three or four puffs on any cig might be another good addiction minimizing trick, based on what the article said.

Menthol cigarettes are also more addictive than regular. For a menthol smoker, it's easier to quit by switching to non-menthol cigarettes first, and then weaning oneself off of those.

Following the incremental quitting strategy, another good method is switching from store-bought cigarettes to rolling your own. Tobacco shops sell good quality, reasonably priced additive free tobacco, along with rolling papers in bulk that are much cheaper than the pot smoker's rolling papers that you can buy at convenience stores. They also have rolling machines that only cost two or three bucks.

I switched to Winston because of their 100% tobacco,"No Bull" marketing thing. From the artcle, I see that they are fairly high on the freebase factor! Maybe I need to go to camels.

Since the freebase factor only concerns nicotine it becomes a choice between high doses of nicotine and chemical additives. I will freely admit I am and have been addicted to tobacco since I started smoking. I have no plans to quit. Do I need to worry about how addictive the brand of tobacco I'm smoking is?

17
posted on 07/27/2003 1:29:16 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(Joe McCarthy was right ... so was PT Barnum!)

Like I've been saying for the past 25 years, I can quit anytime I want!

-Jay

P.S. -- Remember when we were little kids and our mothers used to nag and nag and nag at us and our dads used to order us around? The one thing we had to look forward to was when we'd grow up and would then be free of nagging and being ordered about. ...so WHAT THE HELL is up with the State nagging me and trying to order me around these days? They ain't my freakin' parents!

19
posted on 07/27/2003 1:41:01 PM PDT
by Jay D. Dyson
(Leftists are like any other lower life form...they devour their own when it suits their purpose.)

Lots or cigarettes have saltpeter in them. It keeps them burning. Pure tobacco won't stay lit. Among a few hundred other additives used in cigarettes (not all additives in all cig's) are acetone and benzene. Benzene can be found listed on cans of enamel lacquer paints. The kind that make you feel like Forrest Gump for a few days if you use them in a closed space without a respirator.

20
posted on 07/27/2003 1:41:10 PM PDT
by TigersEye
(Joe McCarthy was right ... so was PT Barnum!)

I smoked Marlboro 100's for almost 20 years, & finally quit in early January using the nicotine patch. I stretched the 14 patches contained in the box to 21 days, & that was it. It was terribly difficult, but I think the worst is over & it's all downhill from here. I am atill using the stopsmokingcenter.net to check my daily progress & keep myself motivated. I gotta admit tho, that I really do miss smoking, I feel like my best friend has left me.....but I know the positives of quitting far outweigh my enjoyment of smoking cigarettes.

I quit over twenty years ago. The last craving I had was six years ago. Where you are now is a rough place. Pretty soon (since you are so recently quit) you will notice the cravings will fade in about six minutes if you tough it out. Later the cravings become less regular in interval and some of them can last for a long time. There was one I remember that lasted 45 minutes that would have got me if there had been a cig in the house. After a year I smoked about 18 cigs in one day, and it was as if I had never quit, except it was easy to stop. No tobacco since then except a piece of a Cuban cigar at my niece's wedding.

Actually, that one might be a myth ; ) The reason for the saltpeter was supposedly to make them burn smoother or something. But they do add things, for flavor and to make it burn well and not go stale before it gets sold.

Before viagra, much of the business that "fertility clinics" did had to do with male impotence problems. There were studies done, and IIRC, upwards of 70% of the men were heavy cigarette smokers, and Marlboros were disproportionately represented among the smokers as a preferred brand.

There are other things that contribute. Carbon monoxide, which I think has a long half-life in your body and displaces some of what should be oxygen in your blood, and the vasoconstricive action of nicotine are both things that wouldn't help, and they're common to all brands.

But the Marlboro-impotence thing was I think the inspiration for the controversial California anti-tobacco ad campaign in which the Marlboro Man's cigarette droops.

What woman would ever have imagined a Marlboro Man with a droopy cigarette? This is almost like the day I found out the Easter Bunny wasn't real.

Well, don't feel bad ... I think that is one of those studies that sounds worse than it is. Just because most of the guys at the impotence clinic were smokers, doesn't necessarily mean that most smokers are impotent.

But I would say that if a smoker has that problem, the first thing he should try is cutting back on the cigarettes.

It isn't as difficult as you think.There is some psychological reason at the root of why you smoke, and if you can figure out exactly what the hold a smoking has on you, you can quit, cold turkey.It maybe because someone you know and admire smokes and to quit would mean damaging such a relationship.It could also be boredom :)Good luck!

I recognize that there are many psychological factors involved, and I think that part of the reason cigarettes are so difficult is the combination of the chemical addiction and the nail-biting-like habitual behavior.

[...leaning back on couch...]

Of course, there's the compulsive aspect from the fact that I used to steal them from my mother and father. And in school, all the cool kids smoked, including the cool chicks. And then as a young adult, all the times I didn't have enough money for cigarettes, then when I got paid -- WOW that cigarette was great.

[...stretch ... thoughtful pause ...]

Y'know Marlboro was my brand for close to 20 years ... I was always secretly enamoured of the "Marlboro Country" ads. Wide open spaces. The Rockies. Freedom. Like a dream of a far-away freedom that couldn't ever be real for me, but I could stare at some of those ads and just daydream. Cowboys. It wasn't that I wanted to be a cowboy, just that I wanted to be where they were in those pictures.

When I was 7 or 8, I remember we had about 100 posters of different paintings, some deal my parents got or something, and they were all rolled up together. I went through them to pick some for my room. I gravitated to big landscapes and cowboy scenes. I remember one of my favorites was a night-time cowboy campfire scene. The cool thing about it was the lighting. All midnight blue with the glow of the campfire in the middle, and one of the prominent things in the scene was one of the cowboys lighting his cigarette. The light from it lit up his face and hand in a warm, magical glow.

Around that same time, my father had a study in the basement level of our split-level. There were two small windows high up in the room. As he sat in his recliner, reading and puffing absent-mindedly on his pipe, rays of daylight would stream into the room from the windows, creating columns of illumination through which rich swirls of smoke would drift slowly, languidly. The puffs and swirls seemed to exist only while touched by the twin streams of light through the narrow windows. If we were quiet, and didn't disturb his reading, we were allowed to sit on the floor and watch, while jazz played quietly on the stereo.

He eventually quit, but my sister and I still smoke. And both of us have tried to quit. Interestingly, my younger brother smoked and quit. Both my dad and him began their smoking in college. My sister and I started(in earnest) when we were fourteen. I have observed this pattern in others as well -- that those who start earlier seem to struggle, while those who start later tend to be more able to take-or-leave them. I think during adolescence your brain chemistry is more adaptable, and that you can develop a stronger dependence on the substance if you smoke through adolescence than if you smoke the same amount time as an adult.

About 10 years ago I quit for 7 months strictly for bugetary purposes by just laying the half empty pack down on the coffee table and when they fit the budget again I picked up the pack and resumed my pack and a half a day.

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